G.O.B. Foregoes $5 Million in GST To Offer Consumer Discount

Minister of Public Service, Henry Charles Usher, shared that the Government of Belize is foregoing five million dollars in GST revenue due to the four-day exemption. He explained that this is just one of many targeted initiatives the government is rolling out to help ease the high cost of living.

 

Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service

“It is important to understand that this is a targeted initiative, because we are always talking about cost of living and the effects of inflation. We know that inflation is something we import just like how we import goods. This government has taken the initiative to have targeted release efforts to consumers for Belizean citizens. You saw the prime minister announce at the State of the Nation Adrees, the announcement the movement of income tax. He announced that the mortgages of a hundred thousand dollars and less, there will be no stamp duty on those. Those are targeted relief to combat the cost of living. This is another targeted initiative, because most of the persons who are in the different bracket, because the already brought their goods. They have their freights coming in, bought it on Amazon or wherever. This wont cover that. What this will cover are those Belizean getting paid this week, because this week is payday week, that will be able to go to the stores and have a discount. This discount is important to understand that this twelve and a half percent relief to what the store is already offering. So if the store is offering a ten percent discount this is a twelve and a half percent on top of that. So you are looking at a twenty-two and a half percent discount. And, from the data that the Tax Service has, normally on a regular weekend, the tax collected from GST during the weekend is around one and a half to two million. Around this time of the year, Christmas time, demand is higher, it is closer to two and half million. So, you are looking at five million dollars between the two weekends that the government or the tax department is putting back into the pockets of Belizean citizens.”